Outcast Quest [Updated 10/10/18 - Turn 14]

[joestej]

Okay, think we can shelve the Subsection 12 problem for now as it seems likely to really have been civilians wandering off.

If Life Support is pretty much mid-way between us and Engineering, I say we head for Engineering and just see if there's any obvious damage to Life Support on our way through. That'll give us more information going forward, and since we've got a while before air runs out there's no need to patch that system first.

I also suggest we forgo the gun and get straight to Engineering. We can call the Colonel and ask him to send either a search team (if one of them is close) or his geared up squad to meet us halfway. If there are any terrorists that far forward, the fact that we didn't meet the team he sent will tell him all he needs to know.

Besides, if terrorists took over Engineering, they're headed for the bridge next as our Dragoon pointed out. Going to the civilians is only going to give the enemy a straight shot at it, and O'Malley won't hold long with a -6 or 7 to all her stats. If we head them of by going straight to Engineering, even if we run the second we meet resistance we can still turn this into a fair fight instead of a siege. It might not even be a hijacking attempt.

Votes:

[X] Go to engineering: Go directly to engineering. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
[X] ...and have the Marines meet us halfway.

---

You're probably putting more thought and effort into the layout than I am. Stop that.

Aw, but look! I just finished the hi-res version!

SpoilerShow

Now, we know from the Insider that the L'Amour is 275m long. If we assume we can jog about ...

[dragoongfa]

My final vote:

[X] Go directly to engineering.
-[X] Have the marine combat squad meet us halfway there as a precaution.

[sunphoenix]

My final vote:

[X] Go directly to engineering.
-[X] Have the marine combat squad meet us halfway there as a precaution.

I can get behind this as well. My Final Vote.

[Nugget]

[X] Go to engineering

-[X] Have the marine combat squad meet us halfway there

if SHTF maybe they can spare a gun for us.

[Logannion]

[X] Go to engineering
-[X] Have the marine combat squad meet us halfway there

Do we have the ability to seal off subsections/bulkheads? If we do I'm tempted to seal subsection 12 off just in case its not civvies.

[alpha]

[X] Go to engineering
-[X] Have the marine combat squad meet us halfway there

Do we have the ability to seal off subsections/bulkheads? If we do I'm tempted to seal subsection 12 off just in case its not civvies.

Right now, this sounds like an Epic version of FTL. Well, more epic.

[X] Go to engineering
[X] Have marines meet you halfway … with a couple headed to engineering.
[X?] Seal off subsection 12… if possible.

[Razor One]

Calling it for Engineering with a Marine Escort. Update below.

--

Engineering. It all comes directly back to engineering. The lines being cut, the environmentals being down, that shear stress... everything is pointing you there. You could check the environmentals, yourself or arm yourself with a weapon but you feel that time is of the essence and make with all due haste.

As you jog through the corridors, you pull out a headset and link in to the ships intercom.

"Commander? Can you patch me through to Colonel Pierce?" you ask.

"Aye, Captain," your XO responds.

A moment later, Pierce's voice comes through loud and clear.

"Captain, I'm in the middle of things, what do you need?"

"What's the situation down there?" you ask, slowing to a brisk walk.

"It seems that a few of the passengers were hallucinating. I've seen it happen before before with FNG's on their first jump, but we've managed to secure them for now," he replies.

"Good work Colonel. I'm heading to engineering to sort this mess out. Are you able to direct a few marines to meet me halfway just in case?"

"Bravo team should be closest to intercept you, just let me know your route," he says.

You tell him before breaking back into a jog. You want to get there fast, not exhausted, so you keep a decent pace despite a niggling desire to sprint there.

You come across the marines before long. Their weapons, a mix from what you can tell, aren't raised, but they are being kept in a wary position. Appearing to be lightly armoured, it seems that the Colonel valued speed over all else when deploying them, and they move quickly to meet you.

"Captain Sheridan?" asks what appears to be the leader of a team of four, his voice is low and quiet and his eyes are alert for anything.

You nod and receive a wary salute.

"Corporal Young," you say, reading his name while returning his salute, "good to see you."

"Likewise," he replies, falling into lockstep with you, "Colonel says you need an escort to engineering in case of a case 12."

You don't precisely know what a case 12 is but judging from the context it could only be the possibility of a terrorist situation.

"That's about the size of it," you reply, "hopefully it's just a damaged line and my Engineer is being unresponsive, but too much has gone wrong for anything to feel right."

Corporal Young grunts in agreement before addresses his team.

"Rose, Kessler, take point. Slade and I will escort the Captain."

A chorus of yes sirs sound out. Two marines, presumably Rose and Kessler, take up a forward position, checking corners, corridors and doors as they go and moving a lot more quietly than you've ever seen someone move on a ship. They're quick and efficient enough that you barely need to slow your pace.

As you begin to near engineering, you start to notice subtle signs of what went wrong. You can tell via familiarity that the deck plating is off-angle, no longer quite as perfectly flat as it once was. You can also see that the corridor is twisted. It's difficult to tell but its definitely off center. The fact that you can't really hear the comforting thrum of the reactor at its usual volume is definitely worrying.

The marines only notice when they find the door to engineering jammed half open and a string of creatively colourful russian swearing floats out on the air. They line up against the wall around the bay doors and wait as Corporal Young uses a specialised telescope to peer around the corner.

The corporals shoulders slump in disappointment. He signs with one finger and then draws a circle in the air. You're not sure what that means, but the rest of his team visibly relaxes, though it's only going from high alert to the cautious stance they met you with.

"Seems all clear, Captain," whispers the corporal, "I ID'd two people, one seems to be your chief engy judging by all the swearing, the other looks incapacitated."

"What if it's a trap?" you whisper back.

He shakes his head and explains, "Hostages not secured, choke points not covered, if it's a trap it's the kind that gets the ambushers wiped out."

While he is openly dismissive, his stance sends a different message; that while he and the rest of his squad are more relaxed, they're still on guard against potential threats.

"Alright then," you whisper, deciding to trust the marine to know his job, "how do we proceed?"

"Slade and I will escort you in, Kessler and Rose will stay here and cover us in case things go south," explains Young.

"Got it," you whisper.

It takes only a moment before you're ready and cross the threshold into engineering with two marines flanking you, weapons half lowered and their eyes sweeping every possible avenue of cover they can find for potential threats.

"Чертов кусок дерьма!" you hear your engineer curse.

You don't understand much Russian, but you do understand that your Chief Engineer generally only gets this way when she has nothing but bad news.

“Chief! What did you break?” you shout loud enough to be heard over her incessant swearing.

The swearing immediately stops and is followed by a loud thunking sound as head meets metal at inadvisable speeds.

“Captain?” asks Volkova.

“Report, Chief Engineer,” you say icily.

She pulls herself out from under the assembly she was working on and stands to attention. She knows when you're pissed off and knows better than to backtalk too much.

“Captain, the situation is grave. Our jump engine tried to vacate its housing as we jumped. The shock absorbers took most of the strain but the portside absorber couldn't take it and failed. The stress on the ship created a differential force that twisted the rear of the ship 0.712 degrees off axis. This resulted in our commlines being cut. I've also cut reactor output to minimum to maximise safety.”

You absorb the report quickly. From what you can understand, your jump engine tried to jump without the ship. You know that they're folded into the guts of the ship and have a series of capacitors and shock absorbers to make the translation through hyperspace quick and unlikely to kill the crew.

The fact that one of them failed without turning everyone aboard into pasty smears on the wall is already a small miracle.

You also know that space is at a premium in certain areas. With the ship being twisted at an angle, you can definitely see the commlines being cut or pulled.

“Why didn't you report to the bridge?” you ask tersely.

“I felt it important to prioritise communications and repairs,” she replies, “I've sent Ensign Barclay to fix the commlines. Ensign Rodriguez is unconscious and Ensign Kelly is missing,”

You frown at that. It seems that her definition of communication and yours are a bit different. She still should have contacted the bridge regardless, but now is not the time to give her a dressing down over that.

“How soon can we be back to operational status? I want my engines back online and I prefer to breathe freshly recycled air,” you ask.

“If I had a drydock and a full repair team? Three weeks,” she responds.

“We don't have those things,” you reply.

“In that case, Comms should take another twenty minutes. Barclay is slow but he is through. Engines will take longer, I'll need to check all the fuel lines and realign them to take into account their new angle. Give me about a day or two. The jump engine is a lost cause for now. The engine itself is fine, but unless you want it to finish the job, we need to replace that shock absorber and then recalibrate from scratch to neutralise the jump stress on the ship frame.”

Her report is concise and to the point but there was one item missing.

“What about environmental?” you ask.

Volkova shakes her head.

“That's the one thing I'm not certain of. Ensign Kelly was on his way there before we jumped. After... I don't know. If he went there he should have fixed it by now, but there doesn't appear to be any damage to the system itself...”

She seems to be struck by a thought but you dismiss it. She's got her work cut out for her.

“Fix my ship, Chief,” you order her.

“Yes Captain!” she salutes before getting back to swearing at the equipment.

The marines seem positively disappointed that they didn't get to shoot anyone. Still, there are other concerns pressing you right now.

Pick Only One

[] See to your passengers.
[] Check environmental control.
[] Stop by the armory.

The marines have done their job well so far. What do you do with them?

Pick Only One

[] Have all the marines bring Ensign Rodriguez to medical.
[] Have two of the marines bring Ensign Rodriguez to medical.
[] Have two marines guard Engineering and two escort you.
[] Go alone. Have two marines guard Engineering and two bring Ensign Rodriguez to medical.
[] Go with a full escort.

--

Volkova Rolled 91 On Jump Sickness. Superior Russian Engineering is Superior.
While her intelligence is high, thus allowing her to accurately and quickly diagnose and begin to repair the damage your ship has suffered, her diplomacy combined with mild jump sickness caused her to err in judgment when it came to proper communication.
Ensign Rodriguez rolled 15 on his Jump Sickness roll. He's more or less incapacitated. He would have been faster on the commline repairs, but it would have been spotty.
Ensign Barclay rolled 73 on his Jump Sickness roll. His relative wellness made him the choice for fixing the commline. He's slower than Rodriguez, but what he fixes tends to stay fixed. Comms will be up in the next round without issue.
Volkova has focused her efforts on ensuring the reactors safe operation in addition to checking other related systems for damage and repairing things as she goes. She's more qualified than Barclay to do this task.
You rolled 5 + 12 = 17 on intrigue vs. Volkova. She's not up to anything nefarious, but you did fail to notice something.

I have a few more notes to share but I need to dash. I'll answer questions when I get back.

[dragoongfa]

Hmm...

Ensign Kelly was going to environmental before the jump, which means that environmental went awry long enough before the jump for Volkova to notice it. The abnormal jump could be a coincidence to that but since we have the marines with us and the system itself is not damaged we should be enough to check it and maybe see that it gets working properly. All of the crew were accounted for so that means that Kelly was found unconscious by the marines and was not knocked out by an assailant.

[X] Check environmental control.
-[X] Have two marines guard engineering and two escort you.

With some hallucinating passengers and the abnormally heavy jump sickness combined one would think that maybe someone tampered with the system to drop something in the air. The doctor would hopefully pick it up but maybe he ain't looking for something deliberate (low intrigue?) ; possible but a long shot and the justification given by Pierce is solid. The thinking behind the decision is to be fully informed about everything when calming down the passengers, checking environmental control is a necessary part of that.

Since things are still uncertain I would prefer to have marines guarding certain key areas. Leaving a marine guard at engineering and then leaving the other two at environmental would guard these two areas until the ship is declared clear with 100% certainty. The two marines left behind would make sure that Rodriguez stays breathing and when communications to engineering come back online the doctor could send someone trained to look after him alongside everyone else that O'Malley sends to help Volkova.

EDIT: Kelly could just be unconscious at his post and if he is so we should check up on him immediately before going to calm the passengers with our silver tongue.

Hopefully the marines will have finished their sweep of the ship by the time we finish with environmental.

[Razor One]

Hmm...

Ensign Kelly was going to environmental before the jump, which means that environmental went awry long enough before the jump for Volkova to notice it. The abnormal jump could be a coincidence to that but since we have the marines with us and the system itself is not damaged we should be enough to check it and maybe see that it gets working properly. All of the crew were accounted for so that means that Kelly was found unconscious by the marines and was not knocked out by an assailant.

Clarifying a few points with what your character knows in-universe:

Environmental was fine prior to your jump. It going offline generally triggers an alert which your XO would have reported to you prior to the systems check. Kelly is the officer in charge of environmentals under Volkova, so him going there isn't unusual.

The crew count is currently 24 accounted for, with most being in medical or the bridge. You had four engineers unaccounted for before this, with Volkova, Barclay and Rodriguez accounted for, that leaves only Kelly.

Kelly himself is a good kid. Bit wet behind the ears but Volkova has reported he'd make a good engineer with more experience and study under his belt. He's been on-ship for the last four years without prior incident and was up for a transfer to a better posting.

Other Notes:

I'm a bit at odds with how I wrote the marines. I wanted them to be professional and on the ball, but I feel that my entire lack of military experience outside of movies shows. It's fun writing outside of my comfort zone, since it forces me to evolve, so it's something I'll need to sharpen up on. If you activate certain plotlines later on, you'll be seeing more of them in action.

{Edit}

And I just remembered another point.

I tried to keep the technobabble to a minimum while also keeping it all plausible. No reversing the polarity of the neutron flow here; I constructed it carefully to both make sense scientifically while also describing your damage accurately. I did have to invent some shit out of whole cloth but I think it's fairly internally consistent and doesn't invent terms out of whole cloth.

If I'm worried about anything, I'm worried about the way I've written the damage to the ship. 0.712 degrees of twist to the aft doesn't sound like a whole lot, but I wanted something that was just damaging enough to cripple you temporarily without leaving you dead in the water. Realistically it might not be enough to actually do the kind of damage described, but you're an FTL spaceship in a universe with telepathic alien amazons, so I figured it'd be okay.

And speaking of FTL, I've heard of it but I've never actually played that game.

[dragoongfa]

Yes, miscounted from earlier, thought that Kelly was with those in the sickbay.

You didn't write anything wrong in regards to the Marines, generally speaking every rank and file soldier knows that it is very bad for ones mental well being if they embarrass their unit at the eyes of outsider officer. Them acting as 'professionally' as possible in front of the Captain of the ship they are hitching a ride on is part of the course, unless they wanted to clean latrines and constantly pull the bad shifts when they are assigned on guard duty. Such shifts are the ones that don't allow much sleep when combined with the regular stuff we had to do. We called ours "German" and the assigned hours were 08:00 to 10:00, 14:00 to 16:00, 20:00 to 22:00 and 02:00 to 04:00.

As a rule of thumb soldiers tend to be unprofessional around those of similar rank or with the handful of officers that allow it in their presence (they are RARE and for good reason).

If I was to point out a minor mistake that would be the marines saying 'Yes sir' and speaking loudly when they don't know if a potential hostile can hear them. Sound travels and being heard alerts the opposition, I pulled some days of 'imprisonment' for making too much noise in a night exercise (imprisonment: not allowed to leave the base when at liberty). The real kicker is that we were trained to constantly speak and report as loud as possible in order to condition ourselves to report properly during a firefight. Its one of the dichotomies that annoy some people.

[joestej]

I honestly don't think we need the marines with us anymore. We know what went wrong: one of the jump engines tried to leave without the ship they were attached to. If this was the result of terrorist sabotage, they were likely trying to destroy us, not capture us. The fact that we survived a drive malfunction like that is a small miracle according to the narration. So I think we can rule out a hijacking attempt.

Kelly being missing is odd but not too odd. He was headed to environmental before the jump, and he likely just got taken out by the same jump sickness that got Rodriguez. The Marines likely just missed him in their sweeps.

Question:
The Marines missing Kelly is a likely possibility, right? I'm not sure how thoroughly they were checking when we had them pick up our stragglers.

Provided I'm not wrong about Kelly, I suggest we have the Marines do something useful with themselves instead of pointless guard detail. The last thing we need is the Colonel getting ticked at us for wasting his resources because we got paranoid. We've already proven that having the Marines around is insanely useful, so we're going to want to maintain as good a relationship with him as possible. The fact that Volkova's low Diplomacy has already caused us some problems suggests that the Colonel's low Diplomacy might also be an eventual issue if we let it.

Votes:
[X] Check environmental control.
-[X] Have two of the marines bring Ensign Rodriguez to medical.

Regardless of other factors, the Colonel seems to have everything under control on his end, so the civilians will keep for another fifteen minutes. In the meantime, we've got a man down. We need to get Kelly safe and see just how badly our Life Support is messed up.

The sooner we can get all our engineers on their feet, the faster we can get this ship fixed. Getting Rodriguez to medical is a priority. I don't think Engineering needs guards, as the threat of hijack seems to have passed. Having our spares come with us is a good idea simply so that when we find Kelly they can get him to medical and free us up to move to another area.


---

To supplement dragoongfa's statements about Marines on a ship, naval tradition has typically held that a Captain has supreme authority over his/her vessel, especially with regards to the safety of the ship and her crew. Assuming this holds true for the TCA it would be extremely appropriate for the Marines to call us "Sir" (or "Ma'am", since we're female) and follow our orders, since right now they would take precedence over even an Admiral's.

In addition, here in the US the Navy and Marines often train together and share assets when applicable. As such they'd likely be very comfortable working with Naval officers and not have any problem with us or our crew...provided we don't do anything stupid to lose their respect.

[Razor One]

Question:
The Marines missing Kelly is a likely possibility, right? I'm not sure how thoroughly they were checking when we had them pick up our stragglers.

While the marines did do a sweep for crew members and found several of them in quick order, the route to Environmental that Kelly likely took was too far for them to have reached it before you called them in, likewise with engineering. The route you were taking did not take you past environmental either. If you hadn't flagged down the marines, there is a chance that they would have found him. The rest of the marines are either on combat standby or with the Colonel corralling the passengers.

To supplement dragoongfa's statements about Marines on a ship, naval tradition has typically held that a Captain has supreme authority over his/her vessel, especially with regards to the safety of the ship and her crew. Assuming this holds true for the TCA it would be extremely appropriate for the Marines to call us "Sir" (or "Ma'am", since we're female) and follow our orders, since right now they would take precedence over even an Admiral's.

In addition, here in the US the Navy and Marines often train together and share assets when applicable. As such they'd likely be very comfortable working with Naval officers and not have any problem with us or our crew...provided we don't do anything stupid to lose their respect.

I surmised as much as this on my research when trying to figure out how people of equal command rank would work together given the circumstances. I figure it's good form, outside of an imminent emergency, to go through their CO before pressing his men into your service though, and vice versa.

Yes, miscounted from earlier, thought that Kelly was with those in the sickbay.

You didn't write anything wrong in regards to the Marines, generally speaking every rank and file soldier knows that it is very bad for ones mental well being if they embarrass their unit at the eyes of outsider officer. Them acting as 'professionally' as possible in front of the Captain of the ship they are hitching a ride on is part of the course, unless they wanted to clean latrines and constantly pull the bad shifts when they are assigned on guard duty. Such shifts are the ones that don't allow much sleep when combined with the regular stuff we had to do. We called ours "German" and the assigned hours were 08:00 to 10:00, 14:00 to 16:00, 20:00 to 22:00 and 02:00 to 04:00.

As a rule of thumb soldiers tend to be unprofessional around those of similar rank or with the handful of officers that allow it in their presence (they are RARE and for good reason).

If I was to point out a minor mistake that would be the marines saying 'Yes sir' and speaking loudly when they don't know if a potential hostile can hear them. Sound travels and being heard alerts the opposition, I pulled some days of 'imprisonment' for making too much noise in a night exercise (imprisonment: not allowed to leave the base when at liberty). The real kicker is that we were trained to constantly speak and report as loud as possible in order to condition ourselves to report properly during a firefight. Its one of the dichotomies that annoy some people.

Duly noted. I'll do another pass and see if I can't correct a few of those details above, then keep it in mind for the future.

{Edit}

Made their language a bit quieter by favouring whispers and low voices rather than generic 'say' and 'reply'. Cleaned up perhaps one instance of unprofessional behaviour from Corporal Young. The Yes Sir's were directed at the Corporal since he was the one giving orders on your behalf, so I figure that's fine for now. Mostly unchanged otherwise.

[joestej]

While the marines did do a sweep for crew members and found several of them in quick order, the route to Environmental that Kelly likely took was too far for them to have reached it before you called them in, likewise with engineering. The route you were taking did not take you past environmental either. If you hadn't flagged down the marines, there is a chance that they would have found him. The rest of the marines are either on combat standby or with the Colonel corralling the passengers.

Okay, that's what I figured. Since there's nothing out of the ordinary about the teams not locating Kelly already, my vote remains unchanged.

I surmised as much as this on my research when trying to figure out how people of equal command rank would work together given the circumstances. I figure it's good form, outside of an imminent emergency, to go through their CO before pressing his men into your service though, and vice versa.

Appreciated. We want to stay on the Colonel's good side, and he will not be happy if we start bossing around his troops without permission. So long as nothing is exploding, we should make sure orders to the Marines go through him first.

[Siber]

I say

[X] Check environmental control.

and

[X] Have two marines bring Rodriguez to medical

and a write-in,

[X] Have one of the marines lend you a sidearm.

I don't think we can entirely rule out hostile action of some sort, so we need to check on enviromental to make sure things aren't going to get worse. I think there's an argument to be made that a hostile would be in the armory, laying an ambush there, but hopefully there's not ship-scuttling explosives stored there or anything. In any case Rodriguez' medical state needs tending too without delay.

[dragoongfa]

Giving your assigned weapon to someone who is not a direct superior officer is a big nono and would look bad if we asked to do so.

[Razor One]

If you want a sidearm, you have to go to the armory. If you want protection, the have two marines bring Rodriguez to medical vote implies that you're taking the other two as escort wherever you're going, which I really should have made more clear.

Passing the sidearm, realism aside, would negate the option of going to the armory in the first place amongst other things.

[joestej]

I don't think we can entirely rule out hostile action of some sort, so we need to check on enviromental to make sure things aren't going to get worse. I think there's an argument to be made that a hostile would be in the armory, laying an ambush there, but hopefully there's not ship-scuttling explosives stored there or anything.

If there is a trap at an armory, it'll likely be of the explosive kind. If they had the resources to sabotage our jump engines they're likely to also have the resources for the old grenade-on-a-string trick. As for ship-killing weapons, to sink us they'd just need the engine room. Turn off the reactor's safeties, blow the fuel, or just smash stuff until we can't fix it anymore. The fact that no one even attempted to seize that room when there was only a single person on duty is somewhat telling.

We may also be overlooking a second possibility for intruders: stowaways, smugglers, or other more harmless criminals. With the almost four hundred passengers we picked up there are bound to be a few less-than-savory types. This whole thing could have been kicked off by someone stealing an expensive part without realizing how much the ship needed it or sticking their satchel of contraband in the wrong cooling duct. If that's the case we're going to be looking for either guilty parties trying to slip back in with the group or opportunistic scavengers seeking to loot some valuable equipment (and weapons) while we're too distracted to notice. Looters are a possibility even if this really was an accident. We DO have a set of Complications coming our way, and a criminal network popping up would certainly make our lives more interesting...

[Suederwind]

[X] Check environmental control.

(I still think we should have done that first)

and:

[X] Go alone. Have two marines guard Engineering and two bring Ensign Rodriguez to medical.

There seems to be no aliens or mutineers aboard, but engeneering needs to be save at all cost and Ensign Rodriguez needs help to get to medical.

[Jericho]

[X] Check environmental control.
[X] Have two of the marines bring Ensign Rodriguez to medical.

This seems to be the most reasonable choice for now.

[Siber]

I'll take yall's word for it on the sidearm issue. I stand by the rest of my votes though.